On the week of new revelations about Tory Prime Minister Ted Heath...
What with all the media hype & no doubt protracted trials (most of which involve police not doing their job when first alerted then never being prosecuted for misconduct) around Kid's Company, Rolf Harris, Rotherham & a hundred other stories of child sexual abuse low down in the power structure... I think it's about time we reminded ourselves of the real deal here.
We are talking about hard evidence now of sexual abuse and murder of children by superstars, intelligence chiefs, top civil servants & political leaders, many of whom have not EVEN been named.

VIP paedophile ring 'abused teenage boy INSIDE Buckingham Palace and Balmoral Castle'
22:30, 29 NOVEMBER 2014 BY KEIR MUDIE , MARK WATTS
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/vip-paedophile-ring-abused-teenag e-4721479
The boy, then just 16, told how he was the victim of “exploitation of the highest order” - the claims could now be the subject of a police investigation
A teenage boy working at Buckingham Palace revealed he was groomed and sexually abused by a VIP paedophile ring there.
The lad was also assaulted at the Royal Family’s Scottish retreat Balmoral, according to shocking Home Office files, reports the Sunday People.
In a heartbreaking note, the boy – then just 16 – told how he was the victim of “exploitation of the highest order”.
The chilling claims could now be the subject of a police investigation into historic allegations of child sex abuse in the 1970s and 80s – linked to MPs and powerful figures.
The disturbing account was passed directly to the then Home Secretary Leon Brittan but he ruled it was “not practical” to investigate.
Campaigning Labour MP Tom Watson said: “I’m sure the Palace will want to co-operate with any inquiry.”
A Palace spokesman said: “The Royal Household takes any allegation of this nature seriously and would act to address any specific allegations or investigate specific information.”
Balmoral CastleShadow on castle: Balmoral, where staff allegedly heard the boy scream at night
The Sunday People and the investigations website Exaro have established that the Home Office file contains evidence of a letter written by the boy’s mother.
She wrote to campaigning MP Geoffrey Dickens, fearing that her son had been groomed by a paedophile ring while working at the Buckingham Palace kitchens.
The boy was 16 at the time, putting him below the age of homosexual consent which was then 21 in England.
In Scotland homosexuality was still totally illegal.
Mr Dickens said at the time: “The boy told his parents he had been sexually abused by members of the Royal Household at the Palace.
“I am concerned the Palace could be part of a chain supplying young men to paedophiles in the diplomatic service.”
British Labour MP Tom WatsonDemand: Labour MP Tom Watson is sure the Palace will co-operate with any inquiry
The 16-year-old went to work at the Palace in the early 1970s. After a few months his family noticed he was acting strangely.
A family friend told Exaro: “Things were OK when he first joined the Palace staff.
"After a few months, things started to turn a little strange.”
After what the source described as an “incident” at Balmoral, the royal family’s Scottish home, the boy’s parents were told by a close friend who also worked at Buckingham Palace that their son was being sexually abused there.
The source added: “They got wind of this after an incident at Balmoral when he screamed in the night.”
Concerned: Desperate parents wrote to MP Geoffrey Dickens for help
The concerned friend, who worked for the royals at the time, immediately alerted the boy’s parents.
He told them: “This is something that you should have nothing to do with.”
Reports from the time reveal further details of the boy’s ordeal.
One says his parents discovered a handwritten note from him.
It read: “What Buckingham Palace did for me was exploitation of the highest order.”
The boy’s mother said at the time: “My son was happy and normal until he went there.
"Then he changed completely. He refused to talk to us or discuss what he was up to.”
Employer: Buckingham Palace
The boy’s father also claimed that young Palace staff were lavished with expensive gifts for “entertaining men”.
He added: “In some cases Palace officials were involved.
“Afterwards, the servants got good references to take up posts abroad with wealthy employers.”
According to the Home Office files, the desperate parents wrote to Geoffrey Dickens for help.
The MP raised the mother’s concerns with the Home Secretary in 1983.
But Mr Dickens received a reply saying Leon Brittan felt it would not be practical to carry out a detailed investigation.
He wrote: “I need hardly assure you that the Royal Household is extremely concerned at these unsubstantiated allegations and it is, of course, their policy to take every step to avoid an occurrence of such as is alleged.
Deputy head of MI5 Peter HaymanDeputy: The 16-year-old was approached by notorious paedophile Sir Peter Hayman
There is nobody currently employed in the Royal Household who is under the age of 18.”
Mr Brittan indicated that her son had worked at Buckingham Palace for a year, adding: “It is extremely difficult to comment on the accuracy of the allegations in the letter.”
But an even more chilling development is contained in the files, lending weight to the claims that a paedophile VIP ring was linked to the Palace.
During his time at Buckingham Palace, the 16-year-old was approached by notorious paedophile Sir Peter Hayman and was asked to work for him in Canada, where he was ambassador.
Hayman has been identified as a member of the VIP paedophile ring operating in Westminster and is known to have had royal connections.
The site of the former Elm Guest House in BarnesScandal: The site of the former Elm Guest House in Barnes
He was desperate to have the boy working for him, even writing to his parents to ask them about taking his son on as a footman. Hayman said the boy would need winter clothes.
The parents never found out how Hayman knew their son.
But the source said: “They knew there was something wrong.”
The parents were so concerned by Hayman’s approach that they attempted to stop their son working for him, the family friend explained.
Exaro has established that the boy’s parents intervened to stop him going to Canada to work for Hayman.
Mr Watson, who has led the campaign for a full-scale inquiry into claims of child sex abuse at the heart of the Establishment, said: “In light of what we now know, any allegation of sexual crimes regarding Peter Hayman should be thoroughly investigated.
“He was protected by the Establishment at the time.
“The full extent of how his conduct was covered up has not been explained.”
Leon Brittan MPMP: Leon Brittan felt it would not be practical to carry out a detailed investigation
The parents and their son have declined to comment on the allegations.
But the revelations link Buckingham Palace to a paedophile network of MPs and powerful figures that operated over many years in the UK.
Palace officials have already been linked to the notorious brothel the Elm Guest House in South West London.
Police are investigating archives on Hayman in a bid to find his links to other Establishment paedophiles.
"An abuse survivor, known as “Nick” to protect his identity, named one of his many VIP attackers as Hayman.
Nick picked Hayman out from a collection of pictures that Exaro showed to him, placing him at abuse parties with other paedophiles.
An appendix to a review by the Home Office last year reveals one of their missing files was called: “Sir Peter Hayman (1980-81 Papers Ex-Diplomat’s Intriguing Private Life).”

A vanished file and troubling claims about Heath and young musicians: There's no smoking gun. But after a week of shocking headlines, the Mail's unearthed fresh allegations
Edward Heath was linked to allegations of historic paedophile abuse early this week
Claims have also been made of a cover-up by members of the British political establishment
A file related to Heath and Paedophile Information Exchange group discovered missing
Now new sex allegations have emerged centring on European Community Youth Orchestra

The late spring of 1978, and in a sunlit rehearsal hall a stout, shirt-sleeved figure, familiar from a quite different setting, is conducting a new orchestra of young musicians.

Roaring and flailing as his proteges run through Ode To Joy from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, former British prime minister Edward Heath is clearly in his element.

‘That’s much better strings … much better!’ he enthuses. Afterwards, he tells a television crew which had been filming the event: ‘The orchestra here has a saying — “Tell them the Community isn’t only about the price of fish: it is about Beethoven and Brahms.”’

An odd comment you might think, if you did not know the political context. The ensemble in question was the European Community Youth Orchestra, and it was about to embark on its inaugural tour of EEC capitals. It was to be a flagship for pan-European cultural co-operation.

The 135 musicians, some of whom were as young as 14, were drawn from the then nine member nations. Heath, an enthusiastic amateur musician who had led the United Kingdom into the European Community five years before, was the orchestra’s founding president. He would also be its guest conductor for that tour and several tours to come.

Today, the orchestra he helped found — now named the European Union Youth Orchestra — goes from strength to strength. But the reputation of the man himself, who died aged 89 in 2005, is being posthumously trashed. Early this week, Heath’s name was formally attached to the wide-ranging allegations of historic paedophile abuse and cover-up by members of the British political establishment.

Within days he had become the focus of investigations by no fewer than seven different police forces examining historic allegations — Hampshire, Jersey, Kent, Wiltshire, Thames Valley, Gloucestershire and the Metropolitan Police — after it was claimed that the early 1990s trial of a Wiltshire brothel madam was dropped when she threatened to claim in court that rent boys had been supplied to the ex-prime minister. The Independent Police Complaints Commission is to examine the allegation, made by a former senior police officer.

Seven police forces are investigating after it was claimed that the early 1990s trial of brothel madam Ling-Ling was dropped when she threatened to claim in court that rent boys had been supplied to the ex-prime minister

The barrister who was to prosecute the brothel keeper — a Filipina called Myra Ling-Ling Forde — confirmed in a letter to The Times on Thursday that she had indeed made the threat, but it was not the reason the trial was halted.

Earlier in the week, it emerged that a man had also claimed that in 1961, when he was 12 years old, he had been raped by Heath at the politician’s Mayfair flat. A further allegation that Heath was part of a VIP paedophile and child murder ring that operated in London’s Dolphin Square was subsequently aired.

In an intriguing development, the Mail learned this week that a file relating to Sir Edward and the infamous Paedophile Information Exchange group is one of those missing from official Government records.

It is among 114 missing files concerning child abuse identified by an independent review of how allegations were handled by the Home Office.

The title of the missing document, ‘Edward Heath MP [redacted] RE: PIE’, refers to the activities of the Paedophile Information Exchange.

Investigators discovered that the file disappeared more than 25 years ago after being moved to a Westminster record centre. They concluded that there was no evidence of any orchestrated attempts by officials over three decades to cover up child abuse.

But the unexpected absence of the file raises questions about the exact nature of the connection between Heath and the PIE group.

The only surviving record of its existence, a brief index, suggests it is linked to an individual Parliamentary question. Officials suspect the document was destroyed during a routine purge of documents after it was moved to the Queen Anne’s Gate record centre in March 1990.

One of the most remarkable manifestations of this week’s hue and cry was the sight of a senior Wiltshire police officer making a televised appeal for ‘victims’ to come forward and ‘suffer in silence’ no longer, from outside the gates of Heath’s palatial former home in the shadow of Salisbury Cathedral.

Such grandstanding was criticised yesterday by Britain’s most senior policeman, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, who said he did not believe Heath should have been named while unproven allegations were being investigated.

Today, we shall examine the credibility or otherwise of this ever-expanding swirl of rumour and allegation.

Suffice to say they are now being chased by internet conspiracy theorists as well as those multiple police forces — the latter anxious not to repeat the mistakes or failures which saw men such as Jimmy Savile and Cyril Smith MP go unprosecuted when there was clear and extensive evidence of paedophile activity over several decades.

In the course of the Mail’s own investigations this week, further new allegations of sexual abuse and possible official cover-up concerning Sir Edward have come to light. They centre on his relationship with the European Community Youth Orchestra.

A retired senior police officer, who served with several southern forces including Wiltshire, told the Mail that there were ‘always rumours’ about Heath, the former MP for Bexley.

The policeman — a widely respected officer with a distinguished career — asked that due to the sensitivities of the Heath investigations, he remain anonymous. He told us that the rumours did not come with any specific evidence against the former PM.

But he went on: ‘The exception were several allegations made against him in his role with the European Youth Orchestra. I understand there were credible claims that Heath indecently assaulted young people on tours to the Continent which he was leading.

‘These tours took place in the late 1970s or early 1980s.

‘It was never clear how old the victims were, or exactly what happened, and what was alleged was not at the top end of the scale of criminality.

‘Why these were never investigated I cannot say. I suspect it is because they took place overseas and the victims were from other countries.’

As Heath, the son of a carpenter, rose through the ranks of the Tory Party on the way to becoming leader, the prickly and enigmatic bachelor became the subject of gossip concerning his private life and sexual orientation. In his 1998 autobiography, The Course Of My Life, Heath intimated that he had once been close to a young woman called Kay Raven. Separated by war service and work, he explained, she suddenly announced that she was marrying someone else.

Heath wrote: ‘I was saddened by this … I had taken too much for granted.’

This was the only suggestion of a close personal relationship.

Others believed that he was in fact homosexual but had suppressed his inclinations in order to advance his career, given that homosexual acts between two consenting adult men over the age of 21 were only decriminalised in 1967.

By then Heath had turned 50 years of age, had been an MP for 17 years and Leader of the Opposition for two. Britain was not ready for an openly gay MP, let alone prime minister.

A 1993 biography, published while Heath was alive, explored the subject but decided there was no ‘positive evidence’ that Heath was gay.

After his death, others were bolder. In 2007, Brian Colemen, a gay Tory member of the London Assembly, alleged that in the 1950s Heath had been warned by police to stop picking up men in public lavatories, though he did not produce evidence to support the allegation.

Yet Heath’s official biographer, Philip Ziegler, wrote that he found there was no evidence of homosexual leanings. In fact, the politician could well have been ‘asexual’.

What is not disputed is Heath’s love of music. Critics said that his attempts to master playing the organ and conducting an orchestra betrayed his chilly self-importance. (Two of his eight Desert Island disc choices were recordings of his own conducting, and when on an official visit to Rome, he gave as a present to the Pope recordings of himself with the London Symphony Orchestra.)

After losing power in 1974, Heath continued to explore ways of combining his politics with his music. The solution came in the form of the Youth Orchestra, which was first mooted in 1976. ‘I had long felt the need for the Community to extend its activities beyond political and commercial affairs,’ he wrote in his autobiography. ‘This is possible with music because it is a single common language.’

Auditions were held in the autumn of 1977, with Heath on the panel of judges. More than 1,000 young Britons aged between 13 and 22 applied for a place. In the end, they made up almost one-third of the complement of the first orchestra.

At each concert in that first tour, Heath conducted the overture, which consisted of the national anthem of the host country and the anthem of Europe, Ode To Joy.

So could he have assaulted some of the young musicians, as the former police officer suggested this week?

The Mail has contacted a number of British former members of the early orchestra, none of whom recalled being aware of anything untoward involving their famous conductor.

One violinist who joined at its inception described Heath as a remote figure whose Special Branch protection officers discouraged the young musicians from approaching him off stage.

Of course, Heath being a very private man did not mean he was necessarily hiding an outrageous secret. Nor did being gay mean that he had a predilection for underage boys. Indeed, much of what has been alleged this week is questionable in the extreme. But that is not to say there may not be some truth in some of the allegations.

Former Fleet Street journalist Alun Rees, who spent 20 years investigating the PIE, told this newspaper that Heath’s name had appeared in a dossier of Westminster paedophiles compiled by the controversial Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens, who made a number of allegations about sex abuse among the political elite during the 1980s.

Meanwhile, award-winning local journalist Don Hale, long-time editor of the Bury Messenger, says that he was approached in 1984 by Labour Party grandee and child protection campaigner Barbara Castle, with what he understood to be a feature from the Magpie magazine published by the PIE group.

It was, he told us this week, ‘about Heath offering weekend trips for boys from Jersey on his yacht. Heath had a number of racing craft named Morning Cloud.

‘She deliberately showed me this and asked what I thought. I was a little confused and asked her “You don’t mean [this is true]?” — and she nodded, and said yes.’

Again, not conclusive.

Heath took up competitive yachting in the mid-Sixties, on the advice of Tory image-makers who wanted him to have public interests which went beyond classical music.

As the Mail reported this week, the timeline of his involvement with sailing undermines the claims of the man previously mentioned who says he was raped in 1961 by Heath in a London flat in which yachting pictures were hung on the walls. Heath did not take up the sport until years after the alleged rape.

Allegations that Heath may have taken boys aboard his yacht now appear to be at the centre of the Jersey police interest in him.

Ocean wave: At the helm of his yacht Morning Cloud in 1975, months after being ousted as Tory leader

A public inquiry into historic abuse of children within the island’s residential care system began last year. A police investigation had recorded 553 alleged offences, more than half of which were committed at Haut de la Garenne Children’s Home.

The internet is now awash with sensational allegations that Heath invited boys from Haut de la Garenne for pleasure trips on his boat. Once aboard, they were abused and, the more outre accusers say, murdered and their bodies thrown overboard.

Yesterday’s Daily Mirror carried a report about a woman named Linda Corby, who claims that in the early 1970s she saw 11 boys aged between six and 11 — from the notorious Haut de la Garenne home — board Heath’s yacht, but that when they returned hours later from a sailing trip, only ten children disembarked.

Ms Corby, an author, claimed that when she went to the police to make a statement a few days later, along with a local politician who had also been a witness, officers told her ‘someone above’ had told them not to investigate.

It is not clear if there is any independent evidence to back up her claim.

One person who could not be relied upon to give truthful evidence is the woman who sparked this week’s furore, the former Salisbury brothel keeper ‘Madame Ling-Ling’, who is alleged to have threatened to expose the former prime minister as a paedophile — a suggestion she denies.

She was once described by a judge as being a ‘thoroughly unscrupulous’ person, when she was jailed for forcing children as young as 13 to work after school in her brothel, a mile from Sir Edward’s mansion, which he bought in 1985.

A former associate of Madame Ling-Ling called her a ‘compulsive liar’.

Yesterday, Myra Ling-Ling Forde — aka Madame Ling-Ling — confirmed she was due to be interviewed by Scotland Yard detectives. Speaking outside her flat in North-West London, she went on to claim that she had a cache of papers containing ‘all the names’ which she would make available to investigators.

The 67-year-old initially said she had been told not to speak about the scandal.

She continued: ‘I was told strictly by my solicitor, because I can’t — I am going to be interviewed by Scotland Yard.’

Asked if the interview was in connection with the Ted Heath probe, she replied: ‘Yes.’

‘They will know everything because of the papers’, she continued. ‘Not newspapers. Papers from the trial. I have them all in a pile, a pile of papers from when I went to court. All the names and everything.’

Sir Edward Heath (pictured as leader of the Conservative party in the 1960's) was a very private man but that did not mean he was necessarily hiding an outrageous secret
+10
Sir Edward Heath (pictured as leader of the Conservative party in the 1960's) was a very private man but that did not mean he was necessarily hiding an outrageous secret

One is minded to believe that when she was facing trial in 1992, she brought the rough and ready survival instincts of the Manila back streets from which she emerged to bear on a sleepy English cathedral city and a famous man who had long been a target of rumour. And yet now those rumours won’t go away.

A few days ago, a second retired police officer contacted this newspaper. Though because of the sensitive nature of the unfolding investigation he did not want to be named, he recalled being at a CID course at the Hendon police college in June 1978 — the time that Heath was embarking on the first youth orchestra tour.

His class was being addressed by a lawyer from the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (then Sir Thomas Hetherington).

The speaker having invited questions from the floor, one officer, known to be a detective sergeant in Special Branch — the police arm of the security services — stood up and asked: ‘As we have a file on Edward Heath, why hasn’t he been prosecuted for young boys?’

The man from the DPP hastily ducked the question, the former detective recalls.

This week, the questions about Sir Edward Heath came thick and fast. Yet it should be reiterated that nothing which has yet been unearthed amounts to solid evidence that the former Tory leader committed any offences whatsoever.

Now, with seven police forces investigating historic claims, we must wait to see what other allegations will be levelled against this enigmatic man.

Edward Heath
Michael Howard
Morality
People are being beastly about Sir Edward Heath again, and for once it is not his opinions but his enviable collection of banknotes that is at the root of the matter.
Last week he spoke at a conference sponsored by the Moonies, or the Unification Church as they prefer to be known. For a 20-minute speech on family values in the 21st century he was paid pounds 35,000. The fee is not as generous as it may seem, though: the recipient must not only deliver his own speech, but sit through two days of other people's speeches on the same subject.

But was it enough to justify an association with the Moonies? Sir Edward has been ferociously attacked for "lending respectability" to the sect. The term "Moonie" has entered the language as meaning a brainwashed, bright- eyed zombie. All the natural instincts of the British are repelled by the thought of lending support to something at once so ridiculous and sinister.

Sun Myung Moon, the founder and leader of the sect, was banned last year from Britain by Michael Howard on the grounds that his presence "would not be conducive to the public good".

None of this seems to bother Sir Edward at all: last week's performance was his fourth at a Moonie-sponsored conference. Nor does it bother many of his fellows on the Jobbing World Statesman (retired) circuit. From Al Haig to Albert Reynolds, many of his peers have been happy to deliver platitudes for large sums at conferences organised by the Moonies.

I think they are quite right to do so (and not just because I once benefited from a Moonie freebie when I worked on the Spectator). Apart from the general presumption of innocence which must attach to anyone whom Michael Howard chooses to bully, there are other reasons for regarding Moon and his followers as harmless. Admittedly, their beliefs, so far as they can be understood, are wacky, but that is no reason for cutting them off from society. Sun Myung Moon thinks he is the Messiah; Sir Edward thinks he was a great Prime Minister. Why is one and not the other regarded as insane?

By the standards of Korean religion, Moon is not that wacky at all. South Korea is probably the home of more and wackier religions than anywhere outside the United States, and many are huge by Western standards - Paul Yonghi Cho, a Korean Presbyterian who performed at Wembley Arena last year, claims to have a congregation of 750,000 at his Seoul church. Mr Moon does not, so far as I know, promise that his followers will become miraculously prosperous if they give him money, as many Pentecostalist preachers do.

He does not promise his followers that God will save a family member of the donor's choice from everlasting damnation for a small consideration, as Morris Cerullo has done.

No doubt the Moonies have caused harm to some of their members and brought misery to some families - though the definitive study of their organisation found that 98 per cent of those converted left within two years. "The really surprising thing is how unshocking most of their morality is," says William Shaw, a broadcaster who spent a year infiltrating cults and is currently presenting the Cult Fiction series on BBC Radio Five Live. "Most Moonies embrace a morality which would make them acceptable in the most genteel Anglican social."

But that still leaves open the question of how best to deal with the destructive tendencies that can emerge in any religion. And here, I believe, Sir Edward has a message for the world.

Edward Heath child abuse: Prison officer in North Yorkshire claims former prime minister abused him
Lewis Dean By Lewis Dean
August 18, 2015 16:47 BST 25 19
Ted Heath
Edward Heath did not commit any crimes and nor was he the victim of one in North Yorkshire, police have said (Getty)
Sir Edward Heath has reportedly been accused of abusing a prison officer in North Yorkshire but cleared of committing any crimes in the region. The former Conservative prime minister, who died in 2005 aged 89, is accused of sexually abusing children and is said to be one of the figures being investigated under Operation Midland into claims boys were abused by politicians and other powerful men at locations across southern England and in London in the 1970s and 1980s.

Five police forces – the Metropolitan Police in London and ones in Wiltshire, Jersey, Hampshire and Kent – launched their own inquiries into suspected child abuse including claims the former Tory leader raped a 12-year-old boy in 1961.

North Yorkshire police has confirmed that while Heath did not commit crimes there, Wiltshire Police is handling a complaint that he abused a prison officer. "Following a comprehensive search of force systems, North Yorkshire Police can confirm that nothing was found to designate Edward Heath as either a suspect or a victim of crime in North Yorkshire," the police force said in a statement. "One piece of intelligence held in relation to Mr Heath, though not connected to the North Yorkshire area, has been passed to Wiltshire Police as the force leading the investigation into the deceased former prime minister."

Edward Heath
by SARKIS ZERONIAN16 Aug 2015142
An ex-aide of former Tory Prime Minister, Sir Edward Heath, shot himself in the head following his arrest for potential child abuse offences. Two days after being questioned by police investigating images on his computer, 40-year-old Nick Edgar killed himself near his parents’ Cambridgeshire estate.

The Sun reports the father of three, who worked as Sir Edward Heath’s Private Secretary in the 1990s, was held by police investigating child abuse crimes in April 2010. Having been questioned again four months later, Edgar shot himself with a shotgun near his parents’ home.

The former Oxford University Union president started working with Sir Edward in 1992 when he was in his early 20s. He worked as his Private Secretary for several years, spending months at the former Prime Minister’s Wiltshire home.

Edgar did not attend Sir Edward’s funeral in 2005, and a member of the Sir Edward Heath Charitable Foundation yesterday told The Sun that after they parted ways Heath had little to do with Edgar who moved to West London. He added:

“They had a working relationship in the nineties but hadn’t spoken in years after that stopped. His crimes that police were investigating are in no way linked to Sir Edward.”

Guy Marsden said the friend was just 14 at the time and the alleged sex attack on him happened at a party in London during the Seventies.

Six police forces are now investigating child sex allegations involving Conservative former Prime Minister Sir Edward, who died in 2005. The Independent Police Complaints Commission has launched its own inquiry into an alleged cover-up.

Mr Marsden, 61, said he and three friends aged 13 to 16 were ferried across London from flat to flat, where sexual abuse took place. He said police are aware of the allegations by his friend, who is now married with two children and wishes to remain anonymous.

The roofer, from Leeds, added: “The four of us would arrive at these parties together, then my friend would disappear. I didn’t think much of it at the time, though I knew it was weird.

“He’d be gone for a while, led away by a man, then he’d be back. I knew there was stuff going on but didn’t know the extent of it until much later.

“I am in touch with my friend and he has told me what they did to him and it’s just horrific, absolutely unbelievable stuff. He would sometimes leave the house we were at then get driven round to some other place. Hours later he’d be back. At that time we never really asked where he had been.

“He later told us that Ted Heath was an abuser but that he didn’t know who he was at the time. He said it was a year after the abuse took place that he was watching TV and recognised him.” The claims come as a lawyer said a sex abuse prosecution at the centre of allegations involving Sir Edward was not dropped to protect the late PM.

Nigel Seed, QC, who was a prosecutor in the case, said a lack of witnesses led to a 1992 case against a brothel madam being discontinued. The lawyer, who now sits as a judge, said he was responsible for the decision and it “had nothing whatsoever to do with any potential allegations against Edward Heath”.

He said the defendant in the aborted trial, Myra Ling-Ling Forde, had threatened to claim during her defence that she had provided rent boys for Sir Edward. But Mr Seed added: “There was no suggestion at that stage that they were under age or anything other than male prostitutes run by her.”

Police in North Yorkshire are investigating links between Sir Edward and a known paedophile friend of serial sex abuser Savile, who died in 2011. Ex-Scarborough mayor Peter Jaconelli died in 1999 but was later exposed as a predator with links to senior Tories.

The Met’s Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe today refused to go into detail about the investigation into Sir Edward, saying only: “We take great care to preserve people’s reputations. We have to examine thoroughly any claim on behalf of a victim but we have to be fair to the suspect.”

His force has refused to say if Sir Edward features in the ongoing wider Operation Midland inquiry allegations of child abuse by senior politicians and other high-profile figures.

13:30 24 Apr 2007, updated 18:53 24 Apr 2007
He led the Tories to a surprise General Election victory over Labour, took Britain into Europe and lost power after failing to beat the unions over the three-day week. But Sir Edward Heath might never have had a stint in 10 Downing Street had he not heeded advice to stop 'cottaging' for gay sex. For he was warned in the 1950s that cruising for homosexual encounters could destroy his political career. Sir Edward, a lifelong bachelor who died in 2005, always refused to comment on his sexuality. But Brian Coleman, a senior Tory member of the London Assembly, has claimed the ex-Prime Minister had actively sought gay sex in public places. He said it was 'common knowledge' among Conservatives that Sir Edward had been given a stern warning by police when he underwent background checks for the for the post of Privy Councillor. In an internet article for the New Stateman magazine, Mr Coleman claimed that gay men had run the Conservative Party in the capital for years, whether as officials, councillors or volunteers. He wrote that Britain 'had managed for decades with gay men holding a significant number of public offices'. Mr Coleman, who is gay himself, added: 'The late Ted Heath managed to obtain the highest office of state after he was supposedly advised to cease his cottaging activities in the Fifties when he became a Privy Councillor.' Sir Edward, a world-class yachtsman, endured a torrid time as Prime Minister after winning power in 1970. He took office promising to be 'tough on pay and tough on unions'. But following endless powercuts, a three-day working week and a pay freeze against the background of the 1970s oil crisis, he was humiliated after being defeated in the snap General Election of 1974. Derek Conway, Sir Edward's successor as Tory MP for Old Bexley and Sidcup, denied there had been any hint of impropriety in his private life. He said: 'Ted was absolutely wedded to politics. He didn't have a great deal of personal companionship in his life but there are people who are capable of getting on with their lives without companionship.' Mr Coleman made his claim in an article that complained about gay men in public life often being 'outed' by others against their will. Senior police chiefs, cathedral deans and Tory MPs now regularly feature in the gay press, he said. He wrote: 'I once asked the late Baroness Blatch as she tried to position herself to inherit the anti-gay crusade of Baroness Young exactly who she thought ran the Conservative Party in London? 'When she looked at me blankly I replied 'the gay men of course' and certainly a huge percentage of Conservative councillors, professional staff and association officers are gay.' He said the practice of 'outing' public figures was carried out by tabloid newspapers to 'discourage thousands of men' from standing for office. He cited disgraced Liberal Democrat Mark Oaten, a former party leadership candidate, who last year announced he would resign as an MP after his sordid six-month affair with a male prostitute was exposed. Fellow Liberal Democrat leadership candidate Simon Hughes was also forced to admit he was gay after repeatedly denying the fact. But Mr Coleman said: "In my experience the only people fascinated as to who does what and to whom are other gay men. "The average voter could not care less if their Member of Parliament visits Hampstead Heath at Midnight as long as they get the holes in the road mended."_________________--
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.comhttp://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."

Sir Edward Heath child abuse claims: The brothel, the former PM and police cover-up at centre of probe
22:15, 3 AUG 2015 UPDATED 09:32, 4 AUG 2015
BY TOM PETTIFOR , NICK SOMMERLAD , RUSSELL MYERS
The madam told detectives she would stand up in court and reveal lurid details of the Tory politician’s perverted sex life if she was ever charged with any offence
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/sir-edward-heath-child-abuse-6188 663

A brothel keeper is at the centre of a police probe into claims former Prime Minister Ted Heath was a paedophile.

The madam, believed to have been arrested in the 1990s for running a secret sex den, told detectives she would stand up in court and reveal lurid details of the Tory politician’s perverted sex life if she was ever charged with any offence.

The woman was due to stand trial but senior officers at Wiltshire Police are believed to have intervened and immediately dropped the case against her.

The astonishing revelations emerged after a retired senior detective came forward in June 2014 to claim the allegations against Heath were never investigated to protect the ex-PM.

Heath is the most high profile political figure to be linked to child sex abuse allegations that have swept across Westminster.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has announced a probe into suspicions of a wide ranging cover up.

Police have also appealed for victims, retired officers and even child abusers who may have any new information to come forward.

“There have been rumours and allegations out there for some time, and I don’t say that lightly.

“It’s now important we establish if there’s any substance to these allegations.

“There can be no cover up just because someone held high office.”

The Mirror can also reveal a second police investigation into a child sex ring linked to Heath was allegedly shut down in the 1970s.

It has been claimed that the Tory ex-leader was spotted at a house in north London where paedophiles were allegedly abusing children.

A former detective who worked on the case says that the whole investigation was halted after Heath became involved.

It is believed the retired officer is also set to reveal his concerns to the IPCC.

Labour MP Tom Watson claimed he received information relating to further allegations of child abuse involving Heath in 2012.

He said: “I received information in 2012 concerning allegations of child abuse carried out by Edward Heath and a separate claim concerning Heath was made to me subsequently.

“I passed them both to the police, who have confirmed to me that at least one of those allegations is being investigated and taken seriously.”

It comes after a 64-year-old man, who worked as a rent boy and was himself later convicted of child sex crimes, claims Heath picked him up in a Jaguar car on the A2 road near Welling, Kent, before taking him to a Park Lane apartment and sexually assaulting him.

Heath, a lifelong bachelor who never married, was Prime Minister from 1970-1974 and died in 2005.

He was plagued by constant accusations and innuendo about his sexual orientation due to his single lifestyle and terse relationships with women.

Wiltshire Police have made an appeal for further potential victims and even paedophiles to come forward if they have evidence against Heath.

It is understood police are seeking information about the alleged cover up from officers in the force and may even interview retired detectives.

Police security teams who protected Heath during and after his political career are also likely to be questioned.

A spokesman for the force said: “Sir Edward Heath has been named in relation to offences concerning children.

“He lived in Salisbury for many years and we would like to hear from anyone who has any relevant information that may assist us in our enquiries or anyone who believes they may have been a victim.

“If there is evidence of offences having been committed we will ensure that , if possible, those responsible are held to account through a thorough and detailed investigation.

“This includes any other parties who are identified as having been involved in child sex abuse.”

The emergence of a full scale investigation into Heath’s background and potential secret double life is sending shock waves throughout the political class in the wake of the ongoing Child Abuse Inquiry, following allegations of a paedophile network operating throughout Westminster.

Sources close to the inquiry suggest authorities were long concerned that Heath had a “penchant for young boys”, although no evidence has until now been presented publicly.

Rumours also circulated how vile disgraced paedophile Jimmy Savile would also procure boys for Heath who would take them on his yacht Morning Cloud.

Heath, an intensely private man, always kept his counsel and never commented on such matters.

One piece of evidence sure to be investigated by the IPCC probe, however, is an admission by Tim Fortescue, a senior whip in Heath’s government between 1970 and 1973, who boasted he could cover up a “scandal involving small boys”.

The astonishing confession concerning members of Parliament was made in a 1995 BBC documentary titled Westminster’s Secret Service.

Mr Fortescue said: “For anyone with any sense, who was in trouble, would come to the whips and tell them the truth, and say ‘now, I’m in a jam, can you help?’

“It might be debt, it might be a scandal involving small boys, or any kind of scandal in which, a member seemed likely to be mixed up in, they’d come and ask if we could help and if we could, we did.”

Mr Fortescue was an MP from 1966 until he resigned in 1973. He died in September 2008.

The tide of allegations now pursuing Heath in death are certain to destroy his legacy and further ignite the rumours that followed him in life.

Chief Executive of the NSPCC, Peter Wanless said: “It’s important that people who believe they have been victims of abuse have the confidence to speak out knowing that their voices will be listened to.

“Whether abuse happened in the past, or is occurring today, whether those being accused are authority figures or not, allegations of crimes against children must be investigated thoroughly.

“While some people wait years before speaking out, we would urge them to act quickly so they can get help as soon as possible.

"Our trained helpline counsellors are always on duty round the clock to listen and provide assistance.”

An IPCC spokesman said: “It is alleged that a criminal prosecution was not pursued, when a person threatened to expose that Sir Edward Heath may have been involved in offences concerning children.

“In addition to this allegation, the IPCC will examine whether Wiltshire Police subsequently took any steps to investigate these claims.”

A statement issued by the Sir Edward Heath Charitable Foundation said: “We welcome the investigation by Wiltshire Police, which we wholeheartedly believe will clear Sir Edward’s name and we will cooperate fully with the police in their inquiries.”

He led the Tories to a surprise General Election victory over Labour, took Britain into Europe and lost power after failing to beat the unions over the three-day week.

But Sir Edward Heath might never have had a stint in 10 Downing Street had he not heeded advice to stop 'cottaging' for gay sex.

For he was warned in the 1950s that cruising for homosexual encounters could destroy his political career.

Sir Edward, a lifelong bachelor who died in 2005, always refused to comment on his sexuality.

But Brian Coleman, a senior Tory member of the London Assembly, has claimed the ex-Prime Minister had actively sought gay sex in public places.

He said it was 'common knowledge' among Conservatives that Sir Edward had been given a stern warning by police when he underwent background checks for the for the post of Privy Councillor.

In an internet article for the New Stateman magazine, Mr Coleman claimed that gay men had run the Conservative Party in the capital for years, whether as officials, councillors or volunteers.

He wrote that Britain 'had managed for decades with gay men holding a significant number of public offices'.

Mr Coleman, who is gay himself, added: 'The late Ted Heath managed to obtain the highest office of state after he was supposedly advised to cease his cottaging activities in the Fifties when he became a Privy Councillor.'

Sir Edward, a world-class yachtsman, endured a torrid time as Prime Minister after winning power in 1970. He took office promising to be 'tough on pay and tough on unions'.

But following endless powercuts, a three-day working week and a pay freeze against the background of the 1970s oil crisis, he was humiliated after being defeated in the snap General Election of 1974.

Derek Conway, Sir Edward's successor as Tory MP for Old Bexley and Sidcup, denied there had been any hint of impropriety in his private life.

He said: 'Ted was absolutely wedded to politics. He didn't have a great deal of personal companionship in his life but there are people who are capable of getting on with their lives without companionship.'

Mr Coleman made his claim in an article that complained about gay men in public life often being 'outed' by others against their will.

He wrote: 'I once asked the late Baroness Blatch as she tried to position herself to inherit the anti-gay crusade of Baroness Young exactly who she thought ran the Conservative Party in London?

'When she looked at me blankly I replied 'the gay men of course' and certainly a huge percentage of Conservative councillors, professional staff and association officers are gay.'

He said the practice of 'outing' public figures was carried out by tabloid newspapers to 'discourage thousands of men' from standing for office.

He cited disgraced Liberal Democrat Mark Oaten, a former party leadership candidate, who last year announced he would resign as an MP after his sordid six-month affair with a male prostitute was exposed.

Fellow Liberal Democrat leadership candidate Simon Hughes was also forced to admit he was gay after repeatedly denying the fact.

But Mr Coleman said: "In my experience the only people fascinated as to who does what and to whom are other gay men.

They say that the cult regularly slaughtered children as ritual sacrifices in church
The woman claim that the former prime minister was part of a paedophile ring
If the allegations are true it would make the cult the worst child murderers in British history
By REBECCA CAMBER FOR THE DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED: 00:53, 20 February 2017 | UPDATED: 02:23, 21 February 2017

A group of women who say Sir Edward Heath abused them as children have also accused their parents of being involved in up to 16 murders.

The farce came as police probe incredible claims that the former prime minister was linked to a paedophile ring that killed as many as 16 children – which would make them the worst child murderers in British history.

The seemingly far-fetched allegations have been made by a family who allege that the politician was part of a satanic sex cult run by their own parents.

A group of women who say Sir Edward Heath abused them as children have also accused their parents of being involved in up to 16 murders
+3
A group of women who say Sir Edward Heath abused them as children have also accused their parents of being involved in up to 16 murders

Police are probing incredible claims that the former prime minister was linked to a paedophile ring that killed as many as 16 children
+3
Police are probing incredible claims that the former prime minister was linked to a paedophile ring that killed as many as 16 children

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They say that the cult regularly slaughtered children as ritual sacrifices in churches and forests around southern England and also participated in similar ceremonies in Africa.

They claim their mother and father – who is said to have known the former Conservative leader – were responsible for slaughtering children ranging from babies to teenagers – yet they evaded justice.

The paedophile ring – which they say Sir Edward was part of – stabbed, tortured and maimed youngsters in churches and burnt babies in satanic orgies before men, women and children gorged themselves on blood and body parts, police have been told.

+3
But there is no suggestion that Sir Edward killed any children himself in the women’s accounts

If the bizarre allegations were to be proved, the parents who allegedly led the killings would be responsible for murdering more children than Fred and Rose West.

They would also be on a par with Thomas Hamilton, who shot dead 16 children in the 1996 Dunblane school massacre.

The women’s lurid claims were dismissed by police in 1989 when they came forward. Sir Edward’s name was never mentioned to police at the time. It was only last year that he was named for the first time after one of the claimants said she had ‘remembered’ a man called ‘Ed’ was a prime mover in a network of paedophile abusers.

But there is no suggestion that Sir Edward killed any children himself in the women’s accounts.

Wiltshire Police have spent more than a year investigating the allegations as part of an inquiry that has cost taxpayers over £883,431 and irretrievably tarnished the reputation of the unmarried politician, who died in 2005, aged 89.

Last night Sir Edward’s godson, Lincoln Seligman, said: ‘I understand that these claims from the 1980s were at the time dismissed as complete fantasy by police. It is disappointing that these wild allegations have been reheated and randomly attached to Edward Heath’s name.’

A Wiltshire Police spokesman said: ‘We are not prepared to discuss this as this is an on-going investigation.’

Edward Heath 'sex' claim as police appeal for victims in 2015
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GODSON HITS OUT AT CHIEF'S CLAIM
The godson of Sir Edward Heath reacted angrily yesterday after it was claimed that a police chief is ‘120 per cent’ sure that sex abuse allegations against the former prime minister are genuine.

Wiltshire Chief Constable Mike Veale was reported to believe child abuse allegations against the late politician – which include lurid tales of satanic child slaughter – are ‘totally convincing’.

Mr Veale, whose force has been investigating the claims for 18 months, is also said to believe that Sir Edward was a paedophile whose crimes were covered up.

Police have established that, contrary to claims that Sir Edward could not have committed the crimes because he never drove a car and always had a police driver with him, he did drive and once had a car.

But the claims have infuriated Sir Edward’s godson, who dismissed it as a ‘PR hustle of some sort’ by the Wiltshire force ahead of an official report into the investigation. Lincoln Seligman, who has described the probe as a ‘witch-hunt’, has questioned how police can say the allegations are true, just on the basis that he may have driven a car.

Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse will look at theoutcome of Operation Conifer, a inquiry into Heath by Wiltshire Chief Constable Mike Veale
His confidential report is due to be published in the next few weeks
The developments came as one Tory MP warned his party not to try to stop Mr Veale from publishing his findings
Findings of Operation Conifer support claims that Sir Edward’s alleged crimes were reported to police years ago but buried by the Establishment
By SIMON WALTERS POLITICAL EDITOR FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY
PUBLISHED: 23:58, 9 September 2017 | UPDATED: 02:36, 10 September 2017

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The controversial investigation into allegations that Sir Edward Heath was a paedophile has been dramatically widened, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

Officials at Britain’s biggest ever public inquiry confirmed that they are to study the findings of an explosive police report into claims that the former Prime Minister was a child abuser.

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse – set up to investigate claims that a Westminster paedophile ring was covered up by the Establishment – will now look at the outcome of Operation Conifer, a two-year inquiry into Heath led by Wiltshire Chief Constable Mike Veale. His confidential report is due to be published in the next few weeks.

The controversial investigation into allegations that Sir Edward Heath was a paedophile has been dramatically widened, The Mail on Sunday can reveal +2
The controversial investigation into allegations that Sir Edward Heath was a paedophile has been dramatically widened, The Mail on Sunday can reveal

A spokesman for the IICSA told The Mail on Sunday last night: ‘In the context of the Westminster investigation, the inquiry will be interested to see and consider the outcome of Wiltshire Police’s investigation into allegations against Sir Edward Heath.’

It is believed to be the first time the inquiry has referred specifically to the Heath investigation.

The statement follows a little-noticed change on the IICSA website on August 30 that the scope of its Westminster inquiry is to be widened to take account of ‘recent police investigations’.

The amendment did not refer to Operation Conifer, but The Mail on Sunday has been told that it was linked to the imminent conclusion of Mr Veale’s probe.

The website added the IICSA would be ‘reviewing, collating and aggregating the work of previous investigations, some of which may not be in the public domain’.

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The Mail on Sunday revealed earlier this year how Mr Veale defied pressure to call off his investigations because he believed some claims were ‘120 per cent genuine’.

The developments came as one Tory MP warned his party not to try to stop Mr Veale from publishing his findings.

Several Conservative politicians have called Operation Conifer, which has cost £1.5 million, a waste of time and public money. They say it is pointless because Sir Edward died 12 years ago and could never be prosecuted.

But Tory MP Andrew Bridgen said Mr Veale had been wrongly vilified and there were ‘powerful voices who would like to silence Operation Conifer’.

Mr Veale was a ‘courageous and honest’ policeman and ‘must be allowed to complete his investigation, free of abuse, intimidation or pressure,’ Mr Bridgen writes in today’s Mail on Sunday. There should be no cover-up, regardless of any embarrassment to the Conservatives – or anyone else.

In February, this newspaper reported that more than 30 people had come forward to Wiltshire Police with allegations of sexual abuse by Sir Edward. The alleged victims were said to have given ‘strikingly similar’ accounts of incidents, even though the individuals were not known to each other.

According to some sources, the findings of Operation Conifer support claims that Sir Edward’s alleged crimes were reported to police years ago but buried by the Establishment.

Inquiry One: Wiltshire police probe

Wiltshire Police have been investigating child abuse claims against Sir Edward Heath for the past two years. Led by Chief Constable Mike Veale Operation Conifer has cost taxpayers £1.5 million so far and will finish in the next six weeks.

Led by Chief Constable Mike Veale Operation Conifer has cost taxpayers £1.5 million so far and will finish in the next six weeks
Led by Chief Constable Mike Veale Operation Conifer has cost taxpayers £1.5 million so far and will finish in the next six weeks

At one stage there were 20 people working on the case: six detectives, a PC and 13 civilian staff. They have interviewed Heath’s former friends, staff and sailing companions, fellow politicians and civil servants, and even examined his papers in Oxford’s Bodleian Library.

A panel of experts was brought in to provide independent oversight of Operation Conifer following claims that it was a witch-hunt, and a waste of money given that Heath is dead and so cannot be prosecuted. Two people were arrested and questioned following claims made as part of Operation Conifer but in April they were told they faced no further action.

After the investigation is closed, a summary will be published, while a fuller report will be handed to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse to consider as part of its investigation into an alleged VIP paedophile ring in Westminster.

Inquiry Two: VIP sex ring report

The public inquiry into historic child abuse was set up by David Cameron in July 2014 after growing pressure from MPs and campaigners who feared the Establishment had covered up sex crimes by public figures.

Professor Alexis Jay became the fourth chairman last summer but immediately faced a fresh crisis as counsel to the inquiry, Ben Emmerson, was suspended and then resigned
Professor Alexis Jay became the fourth chairman last summer but immediately faced a fresh crisis as counsel to the inquiry, Ben Emmerson, was suspended and then resigned

But the inquiry struggled to get off the ground as the first two chairmen, Baroness Butler-Sloss and Dame Fiona Woolf, were forced to quit over perceived conflicts of interest.

The inquiry then chose New Zealand judge Dame Lowell Goddard to take over, but she too quit after a year in charge.

Professor Alexis Jay became the fourth chairman last summer but immediately faced a fresh crisis as counsel to the inquiry, Ben Emmerson, was suspended and then resigned.

Several other lawyers left and a series of survivors’ groups severed their links over their concerns about the inquiry’s leadership, scope and lack of progress.

The inquiry finally held its first public hearing in February this year after spending some £20 million, but it could last as long as a decade and cost more than £100 million.

Some of those who said he abused them are believed to have told police they went on to commit sexual abuse themselves as a result.

Operation Conifer was set up in 2015 in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal, but Mr Veale came under pressure to abandon it last year after separate claims of a paedophile ring at Westminster involving the late former Home Secretary Lord Brittan and ex-Defence chief Lord Bramall were found to be groundless.

The claims investigated by Wiltshire Police, understood to date from the 1960s to 1990s, are not linked to the discredited evidence of the man known as ‘Nick’, who made the false claims against Lord Brittan and Lord Bramall. The Met has now apologised and paid a reported £100,000 compensation.

Allegations that Sir Edward was involved in satanic orgies have been dismissed as fantasy by one expert asked to review the case.

Several senior politicians have dismissed allegations against Heath as absurd and unfounded. Former Tory Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind complained Sir Edward’s reputation was being ‘besmirched’.

Former Cabinet Secretary Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, who was Sir Edward’s private secretary in No 10, criticised the inquiry in a letter to The Times last week, saying the allegations were ‘totally uncharacteristic and unlikely.’

Lord Armstrong referred to unspecified ‘concerns about the conduct of the inquiry’ and called for ‘an independent review of the investigation by a retired judge’.

And Wiltshire Tory MP James Gray said: ‘I do not believe the allegations against Sir Edward. If Mr Veale fails to justify his inquiry, he will be in serious difficulties.’

Sir Edward’s sexuality has been the source of speculation for decades. Some believed he was gay, others said he was asexual. At one point, he was being investigated by five police forces: the Met, Wiltshire, Hampshire, Kent and Jersey.

The claims, some of which were proved false, include alleged links to a convicted brothel keeper known as Madam Ling-Ling.

A paedophile dossier compiled by Labour peer Baroness Castle, a member of Harold Wilson’s Labour Government in the 1970s, said Sir Edward offered young boys trips on his yacht. In a separate incident, one man claimed Sir Edward picked him up in the 1960s when he was a 12-year-old hitchhiking in Kent and lured him to his Mayfair flat.

A IICSA spokesman declined to say if the change in its official stance, as detailed on the website, was to enable it to consider the findings of Mr Veale’s report.

Wiltshire Police said it had not yet sent its findings to the national inquiry, but expected to do so within the next six weeks.

The police investigation into Sir Edward Heath was controversial from the very beginning.

Superintendent Sean Memory stood outside the gates of Arundells, the late PM’s home in Salisbury, to declare in a televised statement that ‘anyone who believes they may have been a victim’ should come forward.

Wiltshire Police has since acknowledged this was inappropriate, while Supt Memory is now on sick leave and being investigated for misconduct over an unrelated matter.

FLASHBACK: How The Mail on Sunday has reported the probe

The original claim under investigation was that the trial of a brothel keeper had once collapsed because she threatened to reveal how she procured boys for Heath.

But the Independent Police Complaints Commission watchdog later said there was no evidence of a cover-up.

More than a dozen people came forward to make allegations against Heath, who died in 2005 and who had been widely regarded as ‘completely asexual’ by friends.

Detectives were accused of going on a ‘fishing expedition’ by interviewing former Downing Street staff, Heath’s yacht crew and even the editor of Private Eye magazine, which had published jokes about ‘Sailor Heath’.

The most contentious allegation, however, was that Heath was linked to a network of paedophiles who held satanic orgies and stabbed children in churches.

The lurid claims were dismissed as fantasy by an expert in ritual abuse cases. Dr Rachel Hoskins concluded they were false memories unearthed in therapy.

She was also alarmed to discover that detectives were studying the discredited statements made by a man known only as ‘Nick’, who had falsely accused military chiefs and MPs, including Heath, of being part of a murderous VIP sex ring. After The Mail on Sunday revealed the astonishing allegations, Wiltshire Chief Constable Mike Veale strongly defended his investigation, declaring in a rare open letter: ‘This is not a “fishing trip” or “witch-hunt”.’

Earlier this year this newspaper told how Mr Veale is convinced the claims against Heath are ‘120 per cent’ genuine.

The number of alleged victims to come forward has risen to more than 30 and some of their accounts are ‘strikingly similar’.

Because Heath is dead and so cannot stand trial, his guilt or innocence can never be proven, and so the controversy over the accusations will likely continue long after Operation Conifer finishes its work.

My party may not like it, but there must not be a cover-up, says Andrew Bridgen, MP for North West Leicestershire

I was greatly concerned when I read a letter in the Times on Friday concerning the police inquiry into claims of historic child sexual abuse by former Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath.

It refers to unspecified ‘concerns about [its] conduct’ and calls for ‘an independent review of the investigation by a retired judge’. In my view this is both unjustified and improper.

Lord Armstrong, who went on to become Cabinet Secretary, has made no secret of the fact that he thinks Sir Edward is innocent. He has described the allegations as ‘totally uncharacteristic and unlikely’.

With all due to respect to Lord Armstrong, I believe he would be well advised not to interfere.

He is not the only one who has criticised Mr Veale: he has been vilified by sections of the media and some of my fellow Conservative MPs.

My message to them is: Leave Mr Veale to do his job.

The timing of Lord Armstrong’s intervention is no coincidence. Mr Veale has indicated that he intends to publish a summary of the findings of Operation Conifer shortly. It would be wholly wrong if the Establishment had any part in this investigation.

It is natural that some will be sceptical about the investigation into Sir Edward. A separate inquiry by the Metropolitan Police, called Operation Midland, collapsed last year after the main allegations were found to be groundless.

For decades, rumours about Jimmy Savile were dismissed by institutions such as the BBC, terrified about the impact of negative publicity on their reputation +2
For decades, rumours about Jimmy Savile were dismissed by institutions such as the BBC, terrified about the impact of negative publicity on their reputation

Mr Veale declined calls to abandon his inquiry on the grounds that he believed the allegations concerning Sir Edward deserved to be taken seriously, on their own merit.

I congratulate him for doing so. I believe he is an honest, courageous and diligent police officer who deserves the chance to complete his investigation and announce his findings in public.

There are powerful voices who would like to silence Operation Conifer. My own party will be severely embarrassed if it transpires the claims against Sir Edward were true. But that is no reason for covering it up.

We have been here before. For decades, rumours about Jimmy Savile were dismissed by institutions such as the BBC, terrified about the impact of negative publicity on their reputation. It seems we have not learned our lesson. Sometimes the unthinkable does occur, and our knee-jerk reaction should not be to put a lid on it.

A brief period followed during which the chastened forces looked into historic allegations of abuse. But the process was tainted by a few bad apples who spotted the chance to revel in the limelight – and possibly make some money in the process.

But that should not be used by the Establishment as an excuse to shelve the entire process.

For all the problems associated with investigating these historic allegations, we have learned the hard way the perils of sweeping them under the carpet.

If we assume that all accusers are fantasists, we compound the distress of genuine victims who have carried their burden in secret for years.

As an MP, I have taken a close interest in trying to help these victims – the powerless against the powerful, battling to be heard when the weight of the state is lined up against them.

That is why Chief Constable Veale must be allowed to complete his investigation, free of intimidation of any sort.

Referring to the inquiry, set up when she was Home Secretary, Theresa May said last week: ‘If we turn a blind eye to this abuse, as has happened too much in the past, more crimes will be committed and more children will be suffering in silence.’

Former British Prime Minister Edward Heath was involved in the decision-making process which led to the torture of the 'Hooded Men', the High Court has heard.

It also heard that Stormont's prime minister at the time, Brian Faulkner, was briefed on the torture techniques.

One of those held said the measures used left him praying for death.
It was also claimed that a government minister visited a training exercise for the interrogation methods in 1971.

'Loud static noise'
Controversy still surrounds the Army's use of what it called "deep interrogation" techniques during the Troubles.
The government is facing a legal challenge from several men, who claim they were tortured by the Army during the conflict, for its failure to fully investigate their case.

Known as the Hooded Men, they were arrested on suspicion of terror offences and imprisoned without trial in August 1971.

In a statement, one of the group recalled collapsing and being punched in the stomach to revive him
Five techniques are said to have been used against the group as part of "deep interrogation"; being hooded and made to stand in a stress position against a wall and beaten if they fell; being forced to listen to constant loud static noise; and being deprived of sleep, food and water.
Barristers representing all but one of the group said the military taught the torture methods to RUC Special Branch officers who sought assurances of immunity from prosecution before carrying them out.
"The allegation in this case is that the decision to sanction that torture was taken by senior ministers," he said.
Action is being taken against the chief constable, secretary of state and the Department of Justice, over alleged failures to properly probe and order a full inquiry.
In a statement, one of the group recalled collapsing and being punched in the stomach to revive him.

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